Startup accelerator Y Combinator will be decreasing its late-stage investments to shift its focus to early-stage startups. In this process, it will be laying off 17 people from its team, according to its President and CEO Garry Tan. 

Tan in a blog post wrote, “late stage investing turned out to be so different from an early stage that we found it to be a distraction from our core mission. So we’re going to decrease the amount of late-stage investing we do.” 

The accelerator said will be prioritising early-stage investments. Tan wrote, “YC is known primarily as a place where very early founders create something from nothing by simply applying online and joining the world’s best founder community.” YC said that there shouldn’t be any noticeable effect on the companies it has funded or on the way it interacts with alumni startups. 

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Tan further wrote, “This means we will no longer need some of the roles on the late-stage investing team. Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today. As we make this change in strategy, we want to acknowledge and express our appreciation for their substantial contributions.” 

Y Combinator faced the brunt of the recent Silicon Valley Bank collapse as many of the startups it backed had exposure. CEO Tan recently submitted a petition to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seeking relief and attention to an immediate critical impact on small businesses, start-ups, and their employees who are depositors at the Silicon Valley Bank, after the collapse. The accelerator has backed more than 200 start-ups in India.

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